The other grant recipients are Duke University, Columbia University, Wittenberg University, University of Cincinnati, Furman
University, Arizona State University and the Japan Center for Michigan Universities.

WMU will use its new award to fund a regional
outreach coordinator position for the Japan Studies Program, as well as
a faculty position in Premodern Japanese Culture and two workshops each
year. Those initiatives already receive major support from the university's Diether H. Haenicke Institute for Global Education and
College of Arts and Sciences.

The Japan Foundation's Institutional Project
Support Program was launched in 2007 with a mission to encourage
innovative projects that emphasize institution building and sustainable
contributions to the field of Japan studies in the United States.

WMU's Japan Foundation grant application was
written by Stephen Covell, director of WMU's Michitoshi Soga Japan
Center and chair of the Department of Comparative Religion, and Jeffrey
Angles, associate professor of Japanese languages and literature.